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Today in class the freshmen read Maureen Johnson’s awesome essay, “The Gender Coverup“, wherein she takes a look at gendered book covers and calls to task those who think there are “boy” books and “girl” books.

“I don’t care,” say some other people. Probably most of the people. Because a lot of people don’t read much or see why any of this affects their lives. But I believe it does affect us all, very much so, because these are all subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) value judgments on what kind of narratives matter.

“But!” some of those people who are still paying attention cry. “Boys don’t like to/can’t read about girls!”

“&^%$@,” say I.

Of course they can, and stop making their choices for them or telling them what they do or don’t want to do. This may be a big part of the problem.

I see this issue every day as a teacher. I saw it in 6th grade and I see it with my high schoolers. I’ll booktalk a fabulous book and the cover will influence students to read it or not read it. I have plenty of male students who, as avid booktalkers of Thirteen Reasons Why would love Before I Fall, but avoid it because of the cover. They deem it “feminine” and say that they will be made fun of. A problem in and of itself, obviously, but we need to stop placing gender labels on books, too.

The conversations that stemmed from the article were fabulous. I eavesdropped as students argued over whether girls are more willing to read broadly while boys stick to certain topics. I watched as they analyzed the covers of the books on their desks. And I hid a smile as they vehemently argued over whether the covers of YA novels fit gender stereotypes. Plus, it led to a great analysis of the many editions of our current class novel, Things Fall Apart. The students noted similarities between how Achebe’s characters were presented on some covers and how those in the Western world view(ed) Nigeria (and Africa as a whole). Could this English teacher be any happier?

After reading the article and viewing the slideshow, I challenged my students to try #coverflip. In groups, they decided on a book that they felt had a cover that appealed more to one gender than necessary. Then, they searched for Creative Commons images that they could use to create a new cover. In photoshop, they designed their new book cover with either a more neutral cover or one that appealed to gender stereotypes. Take a look at what they came up with!

So impressed with what these students came up with in only 40 minutes! And I have to admit, some of these #coverflip books really make me think. What about you?

As a lover of books, I dream of a day when there are no “boy” or “girl” assumptions when it comes to audience. After discussing it with my students, I think they will be the ones to make it happen. For the most part, they see no reason why the narrator or characters should influence the gender of a perceived audience. You hate romance and love action? Great! Doesn’t matter if you are male or female. You love character-driven stories with romance and can’t deal with gore? Awesome! Who cares if you are a girl or a guy? An appealing cover should show some aspect of the story and the audience will find it, as my students said. Marketers can’t always predict who will buy a book (data isn’t perfect, they pointed out!) so why not appeal to the broadest audience possible?

I love my students. :)

*students- if you don’t see your cover here, it’s because I didn’t get it! Tweet or email it to me and I”ll update this post!

A few weeks ago, I participated in the English Companion Ning‘s Webstitute “Work with Me”. (By the way, if you teach English and are not yet a member of the Ning, get yourself over there ASAP and sign up. It is free and full of ideas, networking, and just plain fun.) The best session in the webstitute, for me, was Penny Kittle’s “Craft Analysis”. This year, I have been struggling to get my freshman to take risks in their writing. I teach at a math, science, and technology magnet-like school and all of my students are brilliant. However, many of them are very analytical and black-and-white when it comes to writing. They tend to write a lot of plot summary and avoid any type of analysis. I figured out that they were afraid of being wrong and losing points, but nothing I tried was working- they were still regurgitating plot and not analyzing and thinking on their own.

Lately, I have also been reading a lot about our students’ deficits with close, deeper reading. (Too Dumb for Complex Texts?) Colleges have been lamenting that students are unable to read complex texts and end up in remedial courses. I want to make sure that my tech-driven students are readers who are ready for the rigors of the rest of high school and college. I have spent weeks (maybe even months!) brainstorming ways to bring this to the forefront in my classroom, too.

Then I participated in Penny’s portion of the webstitute. She shared a craft analysis project that she did with her students and I was immediately inspired. It was exactly what I had been trying to come up with, but had been unable to pull together in any type of organized manner. Penny was kind enough to share her handouts and I immediately downloaded them. Over the past few weeks I have been working on tweaking the project for my particular students while also working through the project myself, in order to model it for them. I am rereading Judy Blundell’s National Book Award winner, What I Saw And How I Lied. I’ve storyboarded about half the book while also writing my thoughts, noticings, and questions. It’s really made me work hard and notice Blundell’s craft moves, things that didn’t jump put at me on my first-draft reading. I was so excited to share this with my students and see what they came up. This past week, we started the project.

I am so thrilled with what is happening in my classroom right now! We started with storyboarding earlier this week and it really clicked with my kids. While they were hesitant at first (rolling eyes, mumbling about how it was for little kids), it was fascinating to watch them storyboard William Maxwell’s “Love” and then share their pages with the class. Not one page looked like any other student’s page. They all thought differently and displayed their ideas differently. It was so cool to see them standing at the document camera and explaining their thinking, engaging each other. Later in the week, one of my students met me at lunch for some writing tips/help and he told me that storyboarding is really helping him because, “it’s making me stop and think a lot, and when I think about the story it’s easier to have ideas about it. Then I don’t have to just write what it’s about.”

Right now, each student should be working on storyboarding the book(s) they chose to reread. I had each student respond to an assignment on Edmodo telling me what book they would be analyzing. They picked some great ones! Examples include The Book Thief, The Shadow Children series, Between Shades of Grey, The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Thief, Impulse, Paper Towns, The Hunger Games, And Then There Were None, Ender’s Game, Twelfth Night, Of Mice and Men, The Outsiders, Thirteen Reasons Why, North of Beautiful, and so many more great books!

Next week, I will have them working on the project in-class one day, sharing their craft noticings with other readers and comparing their books. I am dying to know what they are coming up with and I can’t wait to see their storyboard notebooks. I will be sure to share their progress here! By the first week in March, each student will produce for me a 2-page paper analyzing the author’s craft and sharing their analysis with me. Absolutely no plot summary is allowed! They will use their text notes/storyboarding to draft the paper, along with any notes they take from their peer discussions. They will share drafts with each other on Google Docs/typewith.me, assisting one another. Spending the next four weeks doing this will hopefully help them to become better risk-takers in their writing. I am so looking forward to the results!